Sunday, November 26, 2017

Why was a teenager with bone cancer buried on Witch Hill in Panama?

IMAGEA new report by Smithsonian archaeologists and colleagues in the International Journal of Paleopathology identifies a bone tumor in the upper right arm of an adolescent who was buried in about 1300 AD in a trash heap at a site in western Panama called Cerro Brujo or Witch Hill. The reason for what appears to be a ritual burial in this abandoned pre-Colombian settlement is unknown.

The burial in question, in the largest of five ancient trash pits at the site, may have been placed there because it was the site where the individual's ancestors lived. A large town site nearby, Sitio Drago near Boca del Drago on Isla Colón, excavated by UCLA archaeologist Tom Wake was occupied from roughly 600 AD until 1410 AD.

read more here @ Eureka Alert - Science News


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